300 Writing Prompts: #65

I have a corner, and it’s more catchall than kitsch, honestly. It’s not for lack of trying (sometimes) but no matter what I do to fix it up it somehow continuously falls back into disrepair. But it’s comfortable, and while everything in my life might be antiseptic it feels lived in, like it’s home. It’s the place where I can drop anything when I get home and know exactly where it is later when I need it. You know, under that pile of other stuff.

So I cleaned it last week — my wife got me some standalone drawers from IKEA — and I began organizing like it was going out of style. You know, a place for everything and everything in its place. I took every last piece of clutter out of that corner, stacked it up on the couch, and analyzed what I needed, what I could live without, and what needed to go elsewhere. By the time I was finished a lot of the paperwork was categorized and in the file cabinet, some extraneous stuff was in the garbage, and the rest was in those drawers, all neat and tidy…

Until that evening when my wife brought in the mail and I stuck mine haphazardly on the shelf in my corner. Soon my magazines followed suit, then some cords, and the cereal bowl (which makes good decoration), and some other things that I don’t even think are mine. You see, this corner breeds when I’m not looking. It doesn’t want to be neat and tidy. It wants to spread out organically.